You Were An Easy Target

 Victims of all kinds have always had to defend their status as victims. They've always had to fight for the right to declare that they were wronged by other people, with no justification. Oftentimes, it is particularly those people that have not experienced any form of abuse who feel the most strongly about the victim label: no one becomes a victim for no reason, which means you must have done something to deserve it, or at the very least, to instigate the abuse!

There is no such thing as the perfect victim, that is true. But as much as the victim is not exempt of human imperfection, as much is the perpetrator at fault for victimizing someone in the first place. Two things can be true at the same time, remember that. 

Bullying is an interesting form of abuse, because it seems like everyone always has an excuse, a justification for it. Sure, there are a lot of people out there who still think being sexually assaulted is the fault of the woman of dressing too provocatively, but the general consensus seems to have changed. It has become easier for everyday folk to defend the rights of the victim in cases of rape, sexual harassment, and domestic violence. But when it comes to your peers abusing you, there is always at least one excuse that gets brought up constantly. 

"You were just an easy target."

target.

I have always struggled to fully understand what "being an easy target" even means. I know that there are certain characteristics that make you more susceptible to abusive relationships, and that there are certain qualities abusive people tend to seek out in their victims. And sure, I might have had some of those qualities growing up, some even to this day. But is it my fault I've always been a bit sensitive? Should I have just pretended to be someone I was not , only because there are bad people in this world, nevermind how unhappy that kind of life would have made me?

I wasn't "an easy target". I was a child. A child is NOT supposed to be constantly defending themself, fighting for survival. A child should NOT have to protect themself every day, because otherwise the abusers around them keep going. A child doesn't even have the brain capacity to do that. They need protection and safety, NOT abuse. 

The Easy Target Excuse is nothing but putting the blame onto the victim. Some might say it as a reassuring statement, as if to say that there was nothing you could have done about it, you just happened to be there at the wrong place at the wrong time. I don't know about other victims, but to me, that is not comforting in the slightest. Instead of coming up with ways for the victim to internalize their trauma and conceptualize it as something that they were responsible for, let's shift the focus to those who actually DID the abuse. 

Find a new Target,

ichigonya